Part 3 (1/2)

At Fig. 5 are shown different ways of arranging couches in the frigidarium. A shows the objectionable arrangement spoken of; B is the comfortable, s.p.a.cious divan; C the method of placing couches in pairs; and D is a private couch suitable for ladies' baths.

The floor of a cooling room must be boarded. In a bath where cost is subordinate to excellence, a parquetry floor may be provided, and mats employed, as cleaner than fixed carpets. The walls and ceilings may be treated in any manner that may be chosen--plastered, papered, or decorated with colour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5.

Methods of arranging Couches in Cooling Room.]

Any shaped room may be adopted as a combined frigidarium and apodyterium so long as it fulfils the essential points--i.e. that it be s.p.a.cious, capable of easy and perfect ventilation, and of being kept cool, light, and cheerful. In the cooling room the bather will often stay longer than in any other apartment, and no pains should be spared to render it healthy, comfortable, and attractive. The hygienic points to be attended to are, that there be an abundant supply of fresh cool air and an effective withdrawal of vitiated air; for the _cold-air bath_ in the cooling room is, in its way, as all-important as the bath of hot air.

The freshness of the air is of equally vital importance, as much of the _invigorating_ effect of the bath--that effect which to the minds of the uninformed is _weakening_--results from submitting the heated skin to volumes of cold air.[2] In arranging any screens or screen walls in the cooling room, therefore, regard must be had to the method of ventilation, that there be no stagnant corners and recesses. The scheme of ventilation must be decided by the nature of the apartment and its position. In most cases the air is best admitted through the windows, fitted with fanlights falling backwards from the top, and extracted by a powerful self-acting exhaust at the ceiling level. In some positions extraction flues will have to be built, and, in others, flues of large area must conduct to the source from which the fresh air is drawn. Under certain circ.u.mstances perfect ventilation will not be obtainable without the aid of a powerful blowing fan-wheel driven by a motor of some sort, and running so as to exhaust the vitiated air. The means does not so much matter so long as the end be gained, and an ample supply of cool air obtained. A warm, close ”cooling room” is worse than useless. In such places the bather will break out into renewed perspiration, and lie perspiring for hours, and become greatly weakened thereby, with a good chance of taking a chill on leaving the establishment.

Cooling rooms will always remain sufficiently _warm_ in all weathers if they be in any ordinary relation to the heated apartments; but in the height of summer care is required to keep them sufficiently cool. Where simple, everyday precautions will not suffice, the air itself must be cooled, either by pa.s.sing it through a cold chamber or over ice-boxes in inlet tubes, or through a water-spray. Only in exceptional cases, however, is it necessary to resort to such measures, as, contrary to the teachings of theorists, it has been found in practice that the proper temperature for the cooling room of a hot-air bath varies in different states of the weather, and should not remain constant all the year round.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: Not _draughts_. The ancient Romans, it is curious to note, would walk in the open air after the bath; and both the _Frigidarium_ of the Romans and the _Mustaby_ of the Turks were, and are, open to the heavens.]

CHAPTER V.

HEATING AND VENTILATION.

Of the many questions that merit attention and study in connection with the Turkish bath, all sink into insignificance by the side of that of the _heating_ and the _nature of the heat_ supplied in the sudatory chambers. Other things being equal, it is, after all, the _heating_ that distinguishes one bath from another on the score of excellence. The heating of the ”bath” is the Alpha and Omega of the whole matter.

There are two ways in which heat may be applied to the body--by direct radiation, as from the sun or an open fire; and by convection, as through a volume of air.

The ancient Roman bathers, with floors below them which rested upon _pilae_, or little pillars of brick or tile, around which the flames and hot gases from the furnace played, and surrounded by heated, hollow walls, evidently submitted themselves to the action of a heat that must have been of a purely radiating character.

So, also, in a less perfect manner, the Turks, who employ flues running beneath the floors, and the Moors, who adopt stoves visible to the bathers.

Theoretically, radiant heat in a bath is vastly superior to that which is transmitted to the body through the medium of the air. Its virtues have been extolled by David Urquhart and other eminent authorities on the bath. ”There is a difference,” says Mr. Urquhart, ”between radiating and transmitted caloric.... I cannot pretend to treat of this great secret of nature; to work out this problem a Liebig is required. This I can say, that such heat is more endurable than common heat. There is a liveliness about it which transmitted heat lacks. You are conscious of an electrical action. It is to transmitted heat what champagne is to flat beer.... Let us drop, if you please, the word 'bath': it is 'heat.'

Let us away with that absurdity 'hot-air': it is the application of heat to the human frame.” Elsewhere this writer has pointed out that the terms _thermae_, _sejac_, and _hammam_--the names given to the bath by the Romans, Moors, and Orientals proper--mean _heat_, and not ”hot-air”

or ”hot-air bath.”

My own studies, observations, and experience lead me to the conclusion that the direction in which we shall improve the ”Turkish bath” will be in the way of providing sudatories that shall give off pure, radiant heat in such a manner that the whole surface of the body may be sensible of a degree of heat, while the lungs may breathe comparatively cool air--air that has not pa.s.sed over the sides of a fiery furnace and been suddenly raised to an enormous temperature, but which has received its heat by a gentle and gradual process of warming. Under this system the heat of which we are sensible is as the gentle Zephyr to rude Boreas or the biting eastern winds. If we go into a kiln of brickwork, such as is employed in firing clay goods, after the charge has been removed and all fumes and odours have disappeared, we shall note the soft and balmy nature of the heat that radiates directly from the walls and vaulting.

We are, to all practical intents and purposes, _in a Roman laconic.u.m_.

The thick walls have been highly charged with caloric during the firing of the bricks or other articles. They have absorbed vast quant.i.ties of heat, and are now giving off the same to the enclosed air and to ourselves standing within. In the old Roman bath the walls were charged with caloric by means of innumerable earthen tubes lining the sides of the laconic.u.m, and covered with a peculiar plaster. But in both cases the nature of the resultant heat is identical. It radiates to one from all sides. There is no acrid biting of the face such as one feels in the worst type of _hot-air_ baths; no unpleasant fulness or aching of the head; and no panting or palpitating. Such is the ”bath” of pure radiant heat, a thing totally distinct from, and altogether of a different genus to, the bath of heated air. And one might be pardoned for the enthusiasm which would lead one to suggest that it is only in the supplying of this kind of radiant heat in the modern bath that true and rapid progress can be expected, and possibly that not until this great or partial--according as the system of radiation and convection pertains in existing baths--revolution has been effected, will the bath, at present used by the few, become the custom of the many. Some day, peradventure, this hypothetical method of employing pure radiant heat may be rendered possible and practicable, and we may be placed in a bath where we shall receive great heat whilst breathing a comparatively cool atmosphere, and thus receive a measure of that electrical invigoration we experience when, in some sheltered bathing cove, we have exposed our bodies to the fiercest rays of the morning sun whilst yet we breathe the fresh, cool, ozone-laden air.

Till modern invention, however, has provided us with this desideratum in the heating of the bath, we must be satisfied with existing methods. And unless something really practical is perfected, it is far wiser to rely upon the system of heating by convection through the air--the principle, generally adopted, of continuously pa.s.sing large quant.i.ties of freshly-heated air through the sudatory chambers; exposing, however, the heating apparatus, so that a maximum of radiant heat may be obtained; and carefully guarding against injuring the air whilst raising its temperature. If only existing baths were in perfect harmony with this principle, one would have little cause for complaint, and might the more leisurely await the perfecting of the true radiating principle of heating, which I am satisfied is the one upon which we must base all our hopes for the future of the ”Turkish” bath.

For practical purposes, it will suffice if the method of heating and ventilating a bath on the hot-air principle be explained. This I shall now do, and subsequently give plans and instructions for methods of heating and ventilating on systems where, by the exposure of the heating surfaces of furnaces, a large proportion of radiant heat is thrown into the hot-rooms.

The necessary appliances, and arrangements for the heating and ventilation of a bath on the ordinary hot-air principle comprise a furnace in its chamber, with flues or shafts supplying cold, and drawing off the heated air, and a stokery with provisions for firing and storing c.o.ke, &c. Too often the stokery is unscrupulously cramped, and the life of the stoker thereby rendered anything but pleasant. Its design is a simple matter, and perhaps for this reason neglected. The arrangement and construction of the furnace chamber requires care, and the selection of a stove or furnace great judgment. As regards the latter feature, the most important point to consider is the nature of the heating or radiating surfaces. What will raise the air to the required temperature, without in the process depriving it in any way of its vitalising elements, and without adulterating it with either smoke and fumes from leakage, or with particles of foreign matter given off from the material employed in its construction?

There is nothing really better as a radiating surface than ordinary firebrick. From this material a soft heat is given off, differing in quality from that obtained from iron. An iron furnace, however, requires less thought in design, gives less trouble in fitting up, and is cheap, economical, and expeditious. Stoves, therefore, with an iron radiating surface, have been largely adopted in the past, in spite of the objection that, when super-heated, particles of metal are thrown into the air of the hot rooms. Of iron furnaces there are many placed before the public; but though all are doubtless suited to ordinary requirements, there are few that are capable of creditably fulfilling the conditions indispensable for the hygienic heating of the air of a Turkish bath.

These conditions may be summarised as follows:--

1. A maximum of heating-surface, with a minimum of grate s.p.a.ce.